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Steve Lyons has been fired from Fox for making a racially insensitive comment during yesterday's ALCS game regarding Lou Piniella.

"Steve Lyons has been relieved of his Fox Sports duties for making comments on air that the company found inappropriate," network spokesman Dan Bell said.

As reported:

In the second inning of Friday's game between Detroit and Oakland, Piniella talked about the success light-hitting A's infielder Marco Scutaro had in the first round of the playoffs. Piniella said that slugger Frank Thomas and Eric Chavez needed to contribute, comparing Scutaro's production to finding a "wallet on Friday" and hoping it happened again the next week.

Later, Piniella said the A's needed Thomas to get "en fuego" -- hot in Spanish -- because he was currently "frio" -- or cold. After Brennaman praised Piniella for being bilingual, Lyons spoke up.

Lyons said that Piniella was "hablaing Espanol" -- butchering the conjugation for the word "to speak" -- and added, "I still can't find my wallet."

"I don't understand him, and I don't want to sit too close to him now," Lyons continued.

SportsTime Ohio yesterday announced John Sanders will not return to the Indians TV booth for the 2007 season. Sanders, who joined the Indians in 1991, just completed his 16th season calling Indians baseball action on the TV network side.

"We want to first thank John for his dedication and longtime service of covering Indians baseball," said SportsTime Ohio President JIM LIBERATORE. "It is our goal to establish a two-person broadcast team, and today's announcement is the first step in that process. At the end of the day, the announce team serves as story tellers and in order to tell the most complete story, the announcers need to know the complete story. Consistently working with the team, proximity to the team and regular communication with the team is the best and in fact the only way to present the total story, which is what Indians fans expect and deserve. We believe a two-person booth offers a more consistent, defined and viewer-friendly approach for the 138 telecasts on STO."

"From an overall SportTime Ohio perspective, we want a full time presence in the community for our increasing number of local programming hours and also a recognizable STO face for participation with our charitable and civic contributions to the region".

About SportsTime Ohio SportsTime Ohio is a Northern Ohio regional sports network designed to offer a variety of sports programming produced for the Ohio sports fan, with its initial venture being the largest television package in Cleveland Indians team history (158 games to be broadcast in 2006). The schedule calls for SportsTime Ohio to air 130 regular season games and eight spring training games on cable and satellite television. SportsTime Ohio also broadcasts an additional 20 games on WKYC-TV (Cleveland) and other over-the-air local television stations in key Indians television markets. Plans are being developed to offer additional programming, geared specifically toward Ohio-area sports fans and the passion that makes the region the greatest sports community. www.sportstimeohio.com

Friday’s National League Championship Series game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets at Shea Stadium will be played at 8:05 p.m. (ET) and the Oakland Athletics-Detroit TigersAmerican League Championship Series Game 3 has been moved to 4:30 p.m. (ET), it was announced today. FOX Sports and ESPN Radio will carry the games live, coming on-air at 4:00 p.m. (ET) for the ALCS and 8:00 p.m. (ET) for the NLCS.

Those fans who hold NLCS tickets that say “Home Game 1” will be able to use their tickets to Friday’s game only. Fans planning to attend tonight’s NLCS game must use tickets that say “Home Game 2.”

Luis Gonzalez is proving that he has talent beyond just the playing field.

"Gonzo" has been calling games in the postseason for ESPN radio, and will make the jump straight to the broadcast booth for Fox tonight working with their A-lineup of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver when they call Game 1 of the NLCS between the Cardinals and the Mets.

As reported:

"Being still an active player, you tiptoe the line a little bit," says Gonzalez, who also called ESPN Radio playoff games. "I consider it a unique opportunity. And still being on the field gives me a different perspective."

Especially historical perspective. "I'm an old-school player," he says. "Now I'm seeing a new generation where some things are totally different. Like how they hang out. When I came up to the majors in 1990, players stayed two or three hours in the locker rooms, had a couple cold ones and talked baseball. Now maybe a handful of guys are left after games. Everybody's off doing their own thing."

Gonzalez, who joked that he should "ride out on a donkey into the sunset" after being released by the Arizona Diamondbacks, says he won't name teams he's interested in "because some are still playing. And I don't want to knock out the others." Eventually, he'd like a "limited" TV role — as opposed to a being a full-time team broadcaster — because as the father of triplets, age 8, "I want to see my kids grow up."

The following is the national broadcast schedule for 2006 American and National League Championship Series and the 2006 World Series.

FOX will provide complete coverage of all League Championship Series and World Series games, while ESPN Radio will provide national radio coverage in both English and Spanish. MLB International will be transmitting the American League Championship Series and World Series to a worldwide audience in 223 countries and territories in 13 languages.

2006 LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES(ALL TIMES EASTERN)League - Date - Match-up - Air Time - First Pitch

NLCS Game Seven* Thursday, October 19 St. Louis Cardinals at New York Mets 8:00 p.m. 8:19 p.m.

^ NOTE: If ALCS is over on or before 10/17, NLCS Game 6 moves to 8:00 p.m. on 10/18.# Detroit and Oakland will be on FX, except in their own markets where the game will be on FOX (with the NL game moving to FX).

The following is the national broadcast schedule for the first four days of the 2006 American and National League Championship Series.

FOX will provide complete coverage of all League Championship Series and World Series games, while ESPN Radio will provide national radio coverage in both English and Spanish. MLB International will be transmitting the American League Championship Series and World Series to a worldwide audience in 223 countries and territories in 13 languages.

Fox is working the web tokeep audiences in touch with the MLB playoffs. What is interesting, is that Fox is tapping MySpace.

As reported:

Last week the network, in conjunction with the Fox Television Stations Group, launched Fox on Demand, a new platform on the News Corp.-owned MySpace.com designed to allow viewers to stream ad-supported full-length episodes of a host of Fox's top prime-time shows.

Visitors to MySpace.com/fox, along with Fox's local owned-and-operated affiliate Web sites in 24 markets, are able to stream previously run episodes of the shows Bones, Prison Break, Standoff, Vanished, Talk Show With Spike Feresten, 'Til Death, The Loop and Justice.

The idea behind the new platform, says Fox, is to allow these shows' fans to stay connected with their favorite programs during the Major League Baseball playoffs, which hijack much of the network's schedule during the month of October. But it also also allows new fans to catch up on shows.